Newspaper vs. Magazine Image Resolution for Print.

I wanted to give you a little blog post about preparing images for print. Based on whether the image is destined for a newspaper or a magazine, the resolution needs to be adjusted so the proper amount of ink is applied for the substrate used. Because the paper used for newsprint is more porous, there is more dot gain and less ink should be used. Magazines typically use a glossy paper and more ink is used. The image resolution for newspaper is 200 dpi and magazines is 300. Let’s take a look at the steps for preparing the image for each formats. For this example, the space I have to work with in my InDesign document is 6 3/8 x 6 3/4 inches. If I open the original image in Photoshop, you can see it is 14.4 w x 21.6 h at 240 ppi resolution.

We first need to change the resolution from 240 to 300 since this is going to be printed on glossy paper for our magazine. In Photoshop, go to the Image Size window, which can be found under the Image tab, uncheck the Resample Image, change the resolution to 300, and hit okay.

Now open the Image Size window again and click on the Resample Image box. Since we know we will want to keep the full width of the image, we will enter 6.375 in the width field of the document size. Make sure the chain link is activated so that the height adjusts  proportionately along with the width. Notice the pixel dimension width is now 1913 pixels. Hit okay.

We know we are going to have to crop some of the image away. With the rectangle marquee tool selected, you can enter the pixel width and height of your image frame in the control panel. Click on the image and you will get a marquee box the size you need for your document. Place the box where you want and fom the tool bar, click on image, and then click crop.

With your image selected, you can check the Info Panel to make sure that your Actual PPI and Effective PPI are now in agreement and your image dimensions now say 1912 px wide by 2025 px high.

Like I said before, the difference between resolution for magazine and newspaper lies in the dot gain of the substrate. Because the paper used for newspapers is more porous, the resolution for images for newsprint is 200 dpi. Using the same process  as above, you will go into the Image Size window, uncheck Resample Image, change the resolution to 200 and hit okay. Go back into the Image Size window, check Resample Image, and change the image size width to 6.375 inches. The height will scale proportionately to 6.75. After you place the image into the frame in your InDesign document, you will note in the Link Info panel the new pixel dimension and actual and effective PPI are in agreement for newspaper resolution.

Now you give it a try!

Fabulous Portfolio Show

What a great turnout for our portfolio show. In the three hours the show lasted, I can’t remember a time I didn’t have someone stop to visit with me. Check out my table. kudos to my husband who made my board. It was a great backdrop for my projects and an excellent match to the homepage of my portfolio website www.connielmiles.com.

Having trouble finding good music for your project?

I found this great site with lots of choices that lets you download music for your projects. You can either use them for free with credit to them or you can pay $.99 for each track for a single user without credit. Check it out for your projects requiring music!

http://www.jewelbeat.com/store/downloadhome.php

Have fun going through all the options.

Do you know where your fonts came from?

Are you in the know when it comes to font management? As graphic designers, we can accumulate a lot of fonts in the process of creating outstanding designs. We’re all guilty of downloading several fonts in the process of figuring out just the right look that will tie your design and typography together. Maybe you were given a font by your client for a specific project or purchased of a font for a certain project. What do you do with that font now?

When downloading a font, it’s very important that you are aware of the copyright terms associated with that font. Often times there are rules regarding the number of computers can be housed on and the number of users. There’s also terms you agree upon at the time you download that font as to the type of project the font is being used in. Make sure that you are aware of the terms.

Now that you have started keeping track of legal rights surrounding your font, where and how do you keep track of that font? Most computers come with basic font management software, which for most people is adequate for the job, but if your business requires you to keep track of a vast number of fonts, you may want to look at software designed specifically for that task.  What does font management software do for you?

• activate and deactivate fonts
• protect users from accidentally uninstalling a system font
• organize fonts by groups and styles
• view fonts that are not currently activated
• print font samples
• sort fonts by your specific criteria
• search through your fonts by specific needs

Besides keeping track of you fonts by job or client, having too many fonts running on your computer can bog it down and make it run slower. Fonts are basically a software program running in the background always ready when called upon. With that in mind, you can see how a thousands of fonts can make your computer run slow. You can deactivate or disable a font that you rarely use in your font management software, so your computer can run as fast as it possible.

You may want to create folders in your font management software by client, style, or use, to name just a few ways to boost production. You should always be aware of your legal rights to use that font. Once you get a handle on your fonts, you can breathe a sigh of relief that you are doing the right thing.

It’s hard to beat InDesign’s text flow features!

In my last blog, I talked about using paragraph styles to help keep your document text styles uniform throughout. Now, I want to talk about placing large amounts of text into your document. InDesign has some great tools to make this task quick and easy. The most important reason for placing text into your document in this way is so that when you add or subtract text anywhere in the document, all of the text will adjust, not just the text frame in which you made the change causing gaps. And, you should never use the return button to force your text into the next text frame to help close the gaps.

First, I want to show you how InDesign links text boxes work. As you can see, on each of these text frames, the small blue box on the lower right and upper left corners of the text frames are the link boxes.

Okay, now let’s say you have been given the demanding job of placing all of the text for your next newsletter from the Word document your coworker wrote up. You can integrate this text into your document in one of three ways. Creating your text frames prior to placing the text or, if you aren’t sure how many you will need, you can drag a text frame while placing the text, or just click on the page and the whole page will fill with a text frame full of text from the point where you clicked. Let me tell you exactly how this works.

First, open up a new document and set up your columns in the grid for your newsletter. Then, using the shortcut keys command + D, which is the Place function, browse for your document and click the Open button on the lower right corner of the window.  Note that you can select Show Import Options and Replace Selected Item.

Selecting the Show Import Options opens another window, giving you options on how you want to bring in your material. Selecting Replace Selected Item means just what it says. The text you had highlighted when hitting cmd+D will be replaced with the content you are bringing in. Now hit okay.

If you had a text frame selected before hitting cmd+D, the text will automatically show up in your text frame. If you did not have a text frame selected, you will see that that your cursor is loaded with text.  With your loaded cursor, click on the text frame where you want to start your text. And there is your text. You will notice that your text link box now has a red plus in the lower right text link box. This means that there is more text than your text frame has room for.

Click on the red plus sign and you will see your cursor loads with text again. Find your next empty text frame and click on the upper blue box and that text will be placed into the next frame. You can repeat this until you run out of text. You can see the text boxes are linked by selecting Show Text Thread in the drop down under View > Extras > Show Text Thread or just use the shortcut keys option + command + Y.

You will see this blue thread between your text frames indicating they are now linked.

Like I said before, you can either create the text frames prior to placing the text or you can make the text frames are you go. Either way, you now have frames of text that will adjust as needed when changes are made anywhere in the document. Couple this functionality with your paragraph styles and you will be well on your way to being the master of your InDesign content.

How to pick the right printer for the job.

There are definitely many things you need to take into consideration when determining where you should print your product; layout, format, number of items needed, and cost are just a few. Below I will talk about a few of the differences between commercial printing and office printing to help you in the process.

1: Technique – The image carrier: Commercial printers require a plate to transfer the image. One plate is made for each color being laid down. With typical office printers, an image is captured digitally and ink is distributed based on the photographic image. Therefore, every image can be different for each printing run.

2: Costs – Office printing or digital printing is traditionally for smaller quantities of 500 or less and is usually cheaper because of the low startup costs. It is not necessary to make plates and the contents of each sheet can be different. However, toner is generally more expensive than ink and paper that is cut to fit office printers is generally more expensive unless purchased in large quantities.

3: Quantity – Commercial printing is traditionally for larger runs. Because commercial printing jobs require a plate to be made for each color, setup costs are higher, but with larger quantities, the setup costs are spread out more and the ink and paper are generally less expensive than the toner and paper for office printing.

4: Paper Size or Format – With commercial printing you are not limited by the size. With office printing, typically the largest sheet of paper that can be fed into the printer is 18 x 12. With sheet fed or web fed commercial printers, the paper size is much larger and the option to layout more copies of the artwork in an imposition.

5: Ink – Because you cannot print white ink, printing on dark paper is often impossible in office printing. The designer can create a nice look with dark ink on dark paper, but you cannot print white ink on dark paper. With commercial printing, there are PMS ink colors that you can lay down that will print a lighter color on dark paper.

My Bell, Inc. Tour

A couple of weeks ago, we had the wonderful opportunity to get a tour at Bell, Inc. Bell is one of the few places in the region who performs package printing. They have both offset sheet-fed printing where the ink transfers onto a blanket and then onto the paper and web-fed flexography where the ink is transferred from the plate directly onto the paper.

It was a great chance to see up close how remarkable these huge printing presses are and just what they are capable of doing. The flexography machine is not only capable of printing up to 8 different inks, it also dries and cuts the boxes at the end. This is called inline cutting. For the offset printer, they have to move the printed sheets to a separate unit that cuts the packages out based on the die line for that particular box.

They also have the capability of cutting their sheets for the offset in-house. Their cutter can cut approximately 9000-10,000 sheets per hour. It takes only 10 minutes to fill a pallet. Besides their sheet cutting and printing capabilities, they also have the ability to fold, glue, and package the finished product.

In their graphic design department, they prep the client’s artwork, get approval, color match, and place the finished art into an imposition file based on which printer they will be using for that package. They then make the plates based on the imposition layout.

One could spend a lot more than an hour learning about the intricacies of printing. I know I could. It’s a fascinating place.

Question of the day. Why do magazines typically have more creative freedom than newspapers?

Since the beginning, newspapers were used as a means to provide the reader with information; current events nationally and locally. Since their beginning, they have followed a stringent format of columns and grids. Today, with the birth of new media such as eReaders and tablets, the printed word is under jeopardy of disappearing. According to research performed, ownership of mobile devices nearly doubled during the last holiday season and the percent of adults who own mobile reading devices is now about 29%.*

Newspapers were designed to give the facts on a daily basis in a no nonsense fashion. Plates were made daily. In the past, typesetters created the pages by placing blocks of type, so grids were a necessity. Due to the larger live area, newspapers required margins and columns and grids to keep the stories organized and help with readability.  Today, with advancements in computer usage, pages are laid digitally. Advancements in printing press technology have also added to the newspaper’s ability to print color images and graphics. Today, the reader still looks to the newspaper give them the facts and current events on a daily basis, but they no longer want it in a no nonsense fashion. Readers today are visual and get bored with text-heavy material. They want pictures and newspapers are able to provide them with more graphics. Newspapers typically stick to a 5 or 6 column grid structure, but because of the need to keep readers interested, they are finding new and interesting ways to break the grid while still providing structure to the stories.

Magazines are usually printed on a monthly or bimonthly basis and are full of color. The stories were designed to meet a certain group’s interest and magazines are usually sold by topic. The stories are written to entertain, as well as to inform. The writers have more freedom to give their opinions. Magazines have a much smaller live area and can be looser in structure. Magazine pages usually follow a 2 or 3 column grid structure, but because they can be trimmed, they have the ability to use bleeds, allowing for images to fall off the page. Because magazines are graphic heavy, text wrapping and other typographic techniques are used as well, which adds interest to the pages.

Newspapers need to keep up with changing trends, but what does this mean for the industry? How will their look differ from what they are doing today? People are able to get news in a variety of ways today. Will the newspaper survive? It will definitely be interesting to see what happens.

* http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/E-readers-and-tablets/Findings.aspx

Page Layout Solution!

The other day in page layout class, the assignment was to take four images, decide where they should go on the page and just how big they should be for our feature story. Here are three of the examples given by Tim Harrower, the author of our book, “The Newspaper Designer’s Handbood” 6th Edition.

All of these examples use the portrait of the jockey as the main image. Because she is facing right, the rule would be to place her on the left side of the paper. The other three pictures would be supporting pictures, but the question is, where and how big. Above you can see three ways Tim set up his page.

The first one has the race picture as a teaser and all the photos running down the left side. This can work, but it may be a bit off balance with all the text on the right. A liftout quote can be used to break up all the text. This is a good solution if the story is long.

Sample number two has the large portrait at the top and the supporting images grouped in a rectangle module on the bottom underneath the large image. Due to their size, they take up more of the page this way, which can be useful if your story is shorter. You could also jump the story. One drawback to this layout is the white space next to the cutline on the left side of the space. There is no way to avoid this with the sizes and directions of the supporting photos.

The last sample also has the large portrait at the top with two of the images running down the right side, the headline below these images, and the racing picture centered below the headline. It does appear to be a bit top heavy this way, but overall is a fairly nice layout.

Here is my solution. I placed the large portrait at the top of the page on the left side because I thought this made the biggest statement.

I then placed the headline and story running down the right side and grouped all the images under the large portrait with the captions running beside the images. Yes, this does appear to be a bit heavy on the left, but with a five-column layout, this was the best solution I could come up with to use the images provided. If I were able to re-size or crop images, I probably would have done something similar to the first sample above. I like use of the racing image as a teaser. With that being said, the large portrait, which I think makes the best statement for my story, has to be on the left side of the page due to the direction she is looking.

How would you lay out this page?

InDesign Paragraph Styles. Love them!

If you’re not an avid user of InDesign, you may not be aware of all the great ways you can work with text. One feature I really love to use when formatting a lot of text over multiple pages is the paragraph styles. Let’s take a look at the features and how it can be used.

If you have the InDesign software and want to follow along, open up a new letter-sized document with facing pages unchecked. The short cut for opening the paragraph styles control panel is command+F11 on the Mac and F11 on the PC. You can also access the paragraph panel by clicking on the Window > styles > paragraph styles.

Now make a fairly large text box and fill it with placeholder text. A quick way to do this is to make your text box, right click on the text box and select “fill with placeholder text” on the flyout window.

Great! Now we will start stylizing our text. Hit option+command+I to show your hidden characters and place a hard paragraph symbol behind the first few words of your text. We’ll use these words to make a large heading. You can make a hard paragraph return, by hitting “enter or return” on your keyboard. You should see the pilcrow (¶) symbol when you do this. Now, in a similar fashion, place another paragraph symbol after another short line of words. This will be a subheading. Next, make sure you have a few paragraph returns throughout your text for your content and one short sentence at the end, which will be our title. It should look something like this.

Now, place your cursor in the first few words we reserved for our heading and while holding down the option key, click on the “create new style” button on the bottom of the paragraph style control panel.

This opens up a new window, which gives you a huge amount of control over your text. In fact, there’s so many options that it would take multiple blog posts to go over everything. My advice would be to explore these options after this blog post and see what you can do, but, for now, we’re going to set up four different styles—heading, subheading, content, and credit line.

First, name this style “heading”. Then, on the left side of the window, click on the Basic Character Format tab and let’s make the heading Myriad Pro Bold Condensed at 18 pts and under the Indent and Spaces, tab lets do a space after of 0p9 picas. Make sure you have the Apply Style to Selection checked and if you want to see your changes in action, check the Preview as well.

In the same fashion, place the cursor in the next sentence we reserved for our subheading. Option click the “create new style” button again and label this style “subheading”.  Format this text with a semibold format at 14 pts and a space after of 0p9. Next, we will make a paragraph style for our content. Place your cursor in the first paragraph of your body copy and make a new style called content. I’m using Myriad Pro regular 10 pt on 11 pt leading and optical kerning. In order to apply the content style to all of your content paragraphs, you will need to place your cursor inside the each paragraph and click on the content style in the paragraph styles panel. This applies the content style to each section up to the pilcrow. Do this to as many paragraphs you have in your content text until all sections in your content are styled the same. Finally, put your cursor in the last line of text and using the method above, create a style called credit line. I’m using Myriad Pro condensed italic 10/11 with optical kerning.

Viola, you should now have a completely styled document. The great thing about this is when you had another text box on a second page, all you need to do is place your cursor where you want it and click on the style that applies. The other great feature is that you can open style and make global changes over the whole document in one handy panel. Just be careful that you don’t have your cursor in your document or you can easily change it to a style you didn’t intend to have there. Keep going on your own and you will see just how useful paragraph styles really are.